The Awakening (Darkest Powers #2) by Kelley Armstrong

October 12, 2014

Chloe Saunders is not your average supernatural teenager. Genetically altered at birth by a sinister team of scientists, she can barely control her terrifying powers. Now the team that created her has decided it’s time to end the experiment. Permanently.

Now Chloe is running for her life along with a charming sorcerer, a troubled werewolf and a temperamental young witch. Together they have a chance for freedom – but can Chloe trust her new friends?My Thoughts:I was feeling in the mood for something mildly creepy, being near Halloween and all, so I thought I’d pick up this series again. I don’t love it. But I don’t hate it. So that’s something.The writing was just a step below solid, in my opinion, and there was a lot of re-capping the first book. Which gets old. Fast. But the pace was pretty quick and I sped through it; It was one of those books that I couldn’t put down. That’s always nice.This book honestly felt like a whole lot of nothing happened. Our characters struggled, personalities were explored a bit more but not much really happened. We learned so little that I feel like all that we did glean from this book could have been tacked to the end of the first book or the beginning of the next. The only reason this book seems to exist at all is to give Chloe and Derek a lot of alone time. Which was sweet and all but–it was so tame. I don’t mean that to sound raunchy or anything; I promise, I like my books clean, I do! But I would also like for something to happen. Anything. There were a few moments of Chloe and Derek looking into each other’s eyes and Chloe felt something but she couldn’t exactly place what it was and then the moment was over and I felt so cheated. Just kiss him! Oh. My. Goodness. I get that you’re running for your lives and you’ve just discovered you can do all this crazy stuff but, Chloe, you’re 15, dangit! When I was 15 I doubt I would have missed an opportunity like that. Just sayin’. And this is a love triangle series, which I generally get annoyed with, but this book is missing the one fun thing about a love triangle story: Double first-kiss scenes. All I can say is that Ms. Armstrong had better make up for that in the next book.Chloe kind of started to bug me. She’s learning her power, which was interesting to watch, but is still afraid to use it. Which is understandable but also a bit boring. She also just followed along with whatever Derek told her to do. Which kind of pissed me off beyond belief. I don’t care how much more I like Derek than Simon, if anyone (girl or guy) talked to me that way I’d be gone. And back to the powers thing: Chloe is told by a demi-demon that she could raise an army of zombies, right? Why doesn’t she figure out how to do that and attack the crazy people doing experiments on her? She’s got all the power she needs to take care of herself but doesn’t use it. She relies on the two older, more-experienced guys to protect her. Drives me crazy. A couple of times Tori accuses Chloe of being a damsel in distress and the guys being her heroes all the time. Which is completely accurate. I respect that Armstrong acknowledged the problem but I expected her to then correct the problem. Which she didn’t. Chloe remained a bit pathetic and helpless.Derek was the most complex character in the book. Which is always nice. Complexity is good. But it was almost like he was totally bipolar. He was always either really nice or really mean. There was very little in-between with him. And, while entertaining to read, is worrisome. If I were Chloe I’d probably stay away from him. But, then, when he was mean he was just trying to protect Chloe and the others, just doing what’s best for them. That makes it ok, right?Simon was flat and boring. I can’t work up the energy to care about him at all. Tori was the same. As was Rae. So little actually happened in this book, it is just staggering to think about. And then the end left us in almost the exact same place as the end of the first book.So I will read the third book and hope this series redeems itself. Or that something actually happens.Language: None (Armstrong does an awesome job of having her characters “curse aloud” without actually writing any curse words. Every author should follow her example)Sexual Content: None (other than tension on every other frickin’ page??)Violence: Moderate (some fighting, reanimated corpses)Drugs/Alcohol: None